16 People Who’d Easily Get the Worst Advisor Award

Sometimes people are not experienced enough to give advice but they feel a super-strong desire to do it. The main thing to remember is not to follow these recommendations, otherwise, things can turn out contrary to the actual advice. A Reddit user asked the question, “What was the worst advice you have ever received?” and got a bunch of replies.

Bright Side chose the most glaring stories and sincerely empathizes with those who decided to entrust their negligent advisors.

• Both of my parents taught my brother and me that so long as someone wasn’t married that they were “basically single.” My parents never went a year of their marriage without cheating on each other and my brother and I never actually got to learn what a healthy relationship looked like. I’m in my 30s now and, for the sake of my mental and emotional health, have sworn off relationships for the foreseeable future because I cannot bring myself to see anything but future problems. © TheRavingRaccoon / Reddit
• If you run out of dishwasher detergent, just substitute it with regular dish soap. A big mistake that will only be made once. © Deep_Drones / Reddit

• When I went to university I could choose between 2 majors: engineering or language. Most of my family, friends, relatives and even teachers recommended Engineering. Because it’s a “man’s job,” being a translator or interpreter is for girls. So I let myself be convinced and picked Engineering. Fast forward 8 years now I’m a low-level worker at a manufacturing plant because I dropped out of uni, unable to keep up with the stress. The irony is that my main job now is to translate emails and documents for my boss. © thesilentwizard / Reddit
• “Put some butter on it.” —My father to me directly after getting a 3rd-degree burn on my arm (cooking accident) © ISnortBonedust / Reddit
• My husband needed a medical card after his heart failure from viral cardiomyopathy. The social worker told me I should get pregnant so we would qualify for help with his medical costs. I was 24. She listed all the “help” we could get if I could get pregnant. He was in an ICU ward recovering from heart surgery. © shmoopiefunk / Reddit

• I had a crush on a man that was married, he flirted with me relentlessly and asked me to meet him for some drinks. Like a dummy, I agreed, but the day before I felt really guilty and asked my mom what I should do. She told me to go for it, and for some reason just hearing her say that made me realize how awful it was. I didn’t go, I told him he needed to focus on his marriage if he was unhappy and looking elsewhere. © babybluee96 / Reddit
• “Don’t study computer programming. The market is probably going to be saturated by the time you graduate.” From a computer science professor in the mid-80s. © BrobdingnagLilliput / Reddit
• “Family over friends, because friends won’t always be there for you, but family will.” Fat load of crap that was. © TaborlinTheGreater / Reddit
• My boyfriend kept telling me that I smelled bad. I was taking a shower several times a day but he insisted that I smelled bad. Once, I yelled at him and he got all panicked and upset, I eventually got out of him that this is what his father told him to say because it was a sure-fire technique to have a woman never leave you because “she will feel too low to cheat, will love only you, and will always be clean.” Needless to say, his father was wrong. He’s packing his things and moving out of my house today. © ThrowRA-doistink / Reddit

• Investing in my brother-in-law’s bar. Thanks, Dad. Bye-bye 30k and bye-bye bar. Did not know I’d be working alongside an illiterate buffoon. © Alpha**** / Reddit
• My grandmother told me that if I wanted to stop being poor, I should find a job in logistics or warehousing. I was literally managing a warehouse at the time. © GavinBelsonsAlexa / Reddit
• At 24, while making $12 an hour and renting an apartment, my parents convinced me to buy a brand new Honda Accord. They assured me it was the ONLY WAY to get a new car and that used ones broke down immediately. The payments were one entire paycheck of the 2 I got every month. © Worlds_Best_Coffee / Reddit

• My dad pulled me aside and told me that “Your 10-year high school reunion is coming up... your classmates are going to ask what you’ve been doing. You might want to think about what you’re going to tell them.” I wasn’t planning on going to and did not go to my 10-year high school reunion. Why my dad was so concerned with the opinions of people I haven’t seen in over a decade, I have no idea. © Unfortunate_Derek / Reddit
• I told my family I was going to file for divorce because my (ex)husband was abusive. My aunt wrote me 3 pages instructing me to quit my successful career and get pregnant as quickly as possible. The woman had 13 kids. © ContContext / Reddit
• I was told by a sailor of 5 decades that the best way to get rid of sunburn is to take the hottest shower possible. Not only did that cause immeasurable pain, but it didn’t help in the slightest. © BurlHopsBridge / Reddit

• I am on the autism spectrum. Neurotypical friends and family would always tell me that “people aren’t machines, you can’t expect them to behave a certain way.” As a result, people’s social reactions to comments and actions would always seem like a complete black box to me. Actually, I learned in my mid-20s that people are incredibly predictable machines. People have identities defined by a handful of fairly common beliefs. They will have a handful of emotional reactions when situations interact with those beliefs. And I can read those emotional reactions by highly correlated body language or patterns of speech. Now I am recognized as a great people leader and communicator at work. If only I had this spelled out to me 10 years earlier. © DemocraticRepublic / Reddit

What was the most useless advice you’ve ever gotten?